|
|
Africa: Business Schools Set Skills Agenda
 |
|
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
Business Daily (Nairobi)
21 May 2008
Posted to the web 21 May 2008
Mwaura Kimani
Business schools in Africa are expected to play a bigger role in promoting economic growth in future by expanding opportunities for learning good management practices, the institutions' association has said.
This will largely be through development of programmes, which are relevant to countries' development and business agenda, with the view of making graduates globally competitive, said officials of the Association of African Business Schools, made up of 17 leading business schools.
Prof Erasmus Kaijage, the chairman of AABS, said governments are beginning to rely more on business schools and other institutions of higher learning as think-tanks in policy formulation.
However, some of the schools' programmes are far from the development strategies being pursued by countries, rendering them less competitive.
To narrow this training gap and produce experts who can push the wheels of growth, one of AABS' agenda is an exchange programme.
"If we are able to grow a highly-skilled human resource base, this boosts prospects of faster economic growth in our respective countries," said Prof Kaijage, who is also the dean, School of Finance and Banking, in Rwanda.
While Africa is said to be lagging behind other regions in business education, AABS is seeking to raise standards in the continent by linking schools so they can exchange staff, students and ideas towards the all-important international accreditation.Such an initiative is expected to boost the 17 schools' onslaught to enter new markets and play a bigger role in economic development.
"Schools must endeavour to offer students better insight into the challenges of management based on the business environment that they are bound to face in their working life," said Kenya Commercial Bank CEO, Mr Martin Oduor-Otieno.
Established in 2005, the association seeks to improve the capacity of members to "deliver high quality management education."
While demand for executive training is booming, informed by global trends and need for top-notch skills as competition among companies heightens, local and African business schools have been angling to have their presence felt both locally and internationally.
George Njenga, the Dean of Strathmore Business School, said with expanded economies, business schools could get a stronger feel in the training market, taking advantage of expanding income streams as companies spend millions of shillings to train staff.
Strathmore Business School, University of Nairobi's School of Business, Catholic University of Eastern Africa and United States International Universities are the only Kenyan institutions that have registered with AABS. For investors, Kenya is particularly viewed as strategic because of its unique geographical advantages and well developed business hub.
During its annual general meeting last week in Nairobi, the association announced plans to admit more schools. "Business schools and private sector players must also develop wider links to boost skills development, which remain the biggest challenge threatening Africa's growth," said Mr Mugo Kibati, the managing director of East African Cables, who was the chief guest at the function.
|
According to AABS, challenges facing African economies as they move to compete with Asia are high costs of telecoms, rigid labour markets, gaps in public-private partnerships, and political uncertainty, among others. Some African business schools have been recognised; for example, the University of Cape Town's MBA ranked 66th on the Financial Times' 2006 global rankings, the only African school in the top 100.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Copyright © 2008 Business Daily. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Make allAfrica.com your home page | RSS Feed | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top | Site Guide | Who We Are | Advertising | Search | Subscribe | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Questions or Comments? Contact us. Read our Privacy Statement. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
